2-720-482 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'The ship Montrose - Wireless Telegraphy Used To Catch A Murderer', 1910, (1933). Murderer Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen and his lover, Ethel le Neve, were arrested on board the Atlantic liner 'Montrose'. Crippen was suspected of having murdered his wife and dismembering her body. He and le Neve fled in disguise, boarding the Montrose at Antwerp to try to escape to Canada. The ship's master, Captain Kendall, had read reports of the case and was suspicious of the 'father and son'. He radioed Scotland Yard who sent a detective, Chief Inspector Dew, by a faster ship to arrest the couple before the Montrose docked in Montreal. Crippen was convicted of the crime and was hanged. Ethel le Neve was acquitted of any involvement in the murder. This was the first time that wireless telegraphy, invented by Guglielmo Marconi, had been used to secure the arrest of a fugitive at sea. From "The Pageant of the Century". [Odhams Press Ltd, 1933]